Just days after the election, a victorious southern Alberta Wildrose candidate is stirring up controversy by criticizing voters in the province's cities.

Gary Bickman says rural voters have more common sense.

"I think they possess more common sense, a least that's my experience. The people who make their living off the land really seem to understand the way nature really works," said Bickman.

He went on to say that city dwellers just don't understand the issues.

"I think that these social issues that came up during the last week and the PCs ability to exploit them, caused some concern in the voters within urban areas, at least, because they didn't really understand the issues, they didn't really understand that there was an aspect of free speech, " said the Cardston-Taber-Warner MLA-Elect.

Most of the support for the Tories came from the urban areas and they won 41 seats in Alberta cities.

The Wildrose only won three urban seats but they fared much better in the rural parts of the province where they won 14 seats compared to the PCs 20.

Political experts say Bickman's comments won't help the Wildrose in Alberta's urban centres.

"That's pitting one region off against another and that may be good local politics in Cardson-Taber. It is disastrous province-wide," said MRU Political Scientist, Duane Bratt.

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith was not willing to address the issue on Wednesday and said she could not comment on a question that was not sent to her before the interview.

"I think if you want me to comment on something, you have to share it before hand. I don't know the context of the statement so I'm going to have to look at the context of the statement," said Smith.

Bickman is very popular in his riding and won his seat by one of the largest margins in the province.